Post-Racial America — Can It Ever Be?

What if I told you that no matter what we do in America there will always be a racial divide and racial tension? Would you agree me, would you immediately brand me a racist for bringing it up or would you just cite slavery for the millionth time?

Here is my premise. There will always be people white, black, brown and purple who don’t like others and seek to belittle them based on nothing more than their color. These are real racists.

But there are those who are more plentiful and insidious than just average run of the mill racists. There are those within our government and popular culture that seek to make a living and in essence feed off of racism in America. I would venture to say for every white supremacist you find in the trailer parks of the Southeast there is a militant race baiter like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright and Melissa Harris-Perry to match.

You see I have started to look at race as an American problem not a white or black problem. There is racial tension amongst every single racial group in America. Most of them are fueled by stereotypes and misunderstanding of cultures and it is on this fact alone that I feel like forced multiculturalism is failing. It’s not failing because of destiny but because of the evil hearts of men.

I will give you a perfect example from the news today. I would wager that many of you never even heard this story because these stories tend to pass like ships in the night with great help from the mainstream media.

There has been a quiet feud growing between the Obama Administration and the Congressional Black Caucus. The CBC is becoming increasingly irritated over President Obama’s nominations for federal judgeships. They feel as though the president is leaving many states with a lack of diversity on the bench. What ever happened to judging a man on the content of his character and not the color of his skin? I am beginning to see that the dream has died on both sides of the racial argument.

Georgia Rep. David Scott has chastised the president as well as Valerie Jarrett over these appointments. He stated that he approached the president’s closest adviser about the nominations of two men he felt were racists. One due to his support of keeping the Confederate battle flag as part of the Georgia flag and the other due to his support of voter ID laws.

To briefly address these two topics without getting off topic, the Confederate flag has been used as a symbol of racism and I accept that; however; so has the Christian cross. Are we prepared to ban that as well? The point is symbols have lots of connotations to them; another example is the swastika, it was a Buddhist symbol before it was the mark of the Third Reich.

Now on to voter ID laws. I have never understood how this has a disparate impact on the African American community as the congressman claims. We have to show ID for all kinds of things these days. I am planning on buying a rifle this month and guess what, I have to show an ID. That’s right I have to show an ID to exercise my second amendment rights. How is this any different?

The congressman released a statement, “Do you think George Bush would have been able to do this, or any white president would have been able to do this? No,” Scott said. “The president should have said, ‘There’s absolutely no way I want to go down in history as putting these kinds of people into federal court nominations against my own African-American [people]’ … It’s a tragedy.”

Against my own people? I thought that our president and members of congress represented everyone? Now you tell me that they have people. Does that mean that the congressman isn’t looking out for his white and Latino constituents? In short the congressman’s remarks are disgusting and have no place in “post-racial America.”

What makes it more insidious is that the CBC only pretends to care about the real struggles of the African American community. You see if they really cared, instead of squabbling about judgeships that help push their agenda they would be looking at real issues that are effecting African American culture and society. But instead they rely on phantom racism. Why? Because they know it keeps them in a job.

Representative Scott if you really cared about the African American community then why aren’t you devoting this same amount of energy to the epidemic of black on black crime, abortion, drug use and the lack of family structure? All of these amount to a literal implosion of the African American community.

We must stop looking at everything through the eyes of sixty years ago. I believe in America people, regardless of their race, can do anything they want. We have a multiracial president, minority police chiefs, fire chiefs, congressmen and so on. It takes work and any of these men will tell you that. However, as long as we allow a few at the top to continue to point out racism for financial and political gain this is what we will always be. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why there is no such thing as post-racial America.